Cutting it off at the Pass
by Generalissimo
Summary: Part: 1. Harm confronts Mac about their relationship. Set immediately after Tangled Webb part 2. Just to be safe, I'm rating this as M for strong language.
1. An Act of Desparation

Cutting it off at the pass

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: I do not own JAG or any of it's characters. If I did, the characters in question would have had this discussion long ago, the ninth season would have been completely different and we would have an entire season where Harm and Mac were married while working in JAG as opposed to the series ending with them getting engaged.

Spoilers: Lawyers Guns and Money, Pas De Deux, A Tangled Webb Parts 1&2

(Fair Winds and Following Seas, if you count the part about getting engaged in the disclaimer)

Outside the Hotel Nuevo Simpatico

Ciudad Del Este, Paraguay

1900 hrs local

The cab carrying Clayton Webb and Gunny sped away leaving Harm and Mac standing in front of the hotel entrance.

Mac sighed, "Alone at last," unsure as to whether she should be happy or not about it.

Not unaware of the disdain in her tone, Harm replied, "Yeah, I thought they'd never leave."

'What's going on?' He wondered, although he had a pretty good idea. Since recovering from the crash in the rainforest, he done a rather poor of distinguishing himself. Ever since they had met up on the highway, he had done nothing, but hurl childish insults at her. And while she had had an equally childish insult for every one of his, he'd made no attempt to stop the sniping back and forth.

"He's a good man." Mac said, referring to Webb.

'Oh, great!' Harm thought as a wave of jealousy hit him, 'We're back to this. She's practically throwing herself at him. Almost as bad as when Brumby was around…Oops, bad thought Rabb.'

Harm's train of thought was interrupted when a second cab pulled up in front of them. He leaned down to open the back door.

"Heh, if you like that kind of guy I guess." The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them.

Mac sighed, 'Are we really going to do this again?' She thought.

He stood up and turned to Mac, "Ready?" he asked.

She shook her head, "No…not, not quite yet."

Harm was surprised, he figured that the one thing she want to do most is leave this country behind. Seeing as she was shot at, captured and nearly tortured here.

"Mac, we're going to miss our flight."

"It's okay tomorrow's another day."

'What the hell is going on with her?' Harm thought.

He chuckled, hoping to make light of the situation, "Scarlet, get in the cab."

She smiled a rather unhappy smile, "I don't want to be rushed, I want to remember all of this."

It was true, she did. She had been facing death not too long ago. It had made her want to smell the roses, if only for a little while.

'Okay something, is definitely going on here.' Harm was beginning to worry.

"All of what?" he asked incredulously.

'He really doesn't get it.'

Mac shrugged slightly, "For a few weeks everything was…" She sighed, "larger than life."

"Oh yeah," he replied sarcastically, "The grass was greener, the sky was bluer. Your nto going to break into a song are you?"

'Argh! Was he always this cynical?'

Mac laughed in exasperation, "I never noticed this, but you have a way of just taking the joy out of everything."

"Well is your life that boring?"

'Did I just say that?' He thought, 'Stupid!'

That last remark had hurt.

'What the hell is his problem? Do I really need to spell it out? He's always like this. Honestly, how can we have a relationship of any kind, if all we do is throw insults back and forth?'

She paused, unsure of how to broach the subject. "No…no, but after everything that's happened I am grateful to be alive, and it's made me take a second look."

'Oh, boy, I don't think I can handle where this conversation is going. I was really hoping to talk about this when we got back to the States.' He thought.

'This is it.' She thought.

"Do you remember that chat that we were going to have about…us?" She asked, "Well there's just one problem."

'Uh oh.' echoed through Harm's mind.

"Only one?" Harm joked, for the first time noticing the sadness in his beautiful partner's eyes.

Mac looked at him, straight in the eye. "Things are never going to work out between us." She told him deadpan.

Harm was shocked, but he didn't let it show.

"Why not?" He asked honestly.

"Because we both want to be on top," She told him, "and that's physically and emotionally impossible."

With one last sad look she turned towards the waiting taxi.

'This is the way it has to be.' She thought.

Harm stood there, absolutely flabbergasted. He cursed himself for being such an idiot, he cursed Clayton Webb for taking Mac on the mission that led to this and he cursed the entire nation of Paraguay for every bad thing that had happened to him and his friends since entering this country. As Mac got closer to entering the cab, only one thought went through his mind.

'I'll be damned if I'm going to leave it at this.'

Acting on instinct, he took two long strides towards her and grabbed her arm, pulling her back. He reached forward and slammed the car door shut.

"We'll take the next one." He told the confused driver. As the cab sped away, Harm turned to face Mac, who was now staring at him with a mix of anger and confusion.

"We need to talk." He stated simply.

"I think it's all been said." She told him, her voice betraying thinly veiled anger.

"Well I don't. Now I'm going into the hotel for a drink that I think I desperately need and then I want to talk. So are you coming or not?"

Incensed, Mac stared at him and then defiantly folded her arms, turning her back to him.

'Fuck him. I'm not playing around any more."

Seeing this, Harm felt his own anger rising. He grabbed her by the shoulder and roughly pulled her around to face him. The look of anger on her face was momentarily replaced by shock.

"Look Mac, you don't just get to drop a bomb like that and then walk away." His voice was rising steadily.

Mac sighed, exasperated, "Why should I come in with you?"

"Because damn it, you just basically declared our friendship null and void; and I think I deserve a better explanation than some metaphor. You owe me that much."

For a while, Mac just stood there. Suddenly, something inside her forced her head to nod and she headed for the door.

To be continued…


	2. The Last Gasp

Harm made quick strides through the lobby and towards the hotel bar, with Mac in tow.

'What am I going to say?' he thought, 'How can I save this?'

Except for the staff, the bar was empty. Harm sat down at a table and signaled a nearby waiter.

"Whiskey and a soda with a twist." he ordered.

Mac sat down and the waiter returned with the order. Harm took the glass and downed the drink in one gulp. He ordered another.

"We going to actually talk, or are you just going to drown yourself in booze?" Mac asked. She was getting impatient

Harm felt an urge to make some snide remark about her drinking history, but just barely managed to bite it back. He knew that such a remark would do nothing to help his case. But her remarks beginning to get on his nerves, which was doing nothing to improve his already foul mood.

"I'm working towards something." He said with no trace of emotion.

At first Mac said nothing, but then something nasty inside her made her say, "If you need that to work towards something than that's generally a sign there's a problem."

Harm only just managed to stop the words: "You should know" from escaping.

'If she keeps going like this, I'm going to lose it. If she weren't a woman, I swear to god I'd…'

The waiter brought the second and Harm consumed it with equal voracity. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

"Here goes." He said and thought.

Mac looked at him expectantly.

"Okay, first things first. Why are you so convinced that it'll never work out between us?"

"I told you why." Mac had to keep from rolling her eyes. This was getting her nowhere.

"Oh, I know what you told me. You know what I think?"

Mac sat motionless.

Harm sighed angrily, "I'll tell you. I think it's a cop-out, plain and simple."

Mac felt her anger beginning to rise. "A cop-out?"

"Damn right. You can't tell me the real reason because you're afraid so you throw some bullshit metaphor at me."

"Afraid?" Mac's eyes flashed. "You want to talk about being afraid? When I wanted to talk about our relationship, back in the hotel room, who was the one who said 'let's table this discussion for another time'?"

"I wasn't afraid. I wanted to avoid an argument. You didn't want to talk about our relationship, you just wanted to rant and rave at me for not telling I resigned my commission."

"I didn't rant or rave. I just wanted to know why you did and why you didn't tell me."

"I told you why, and I didn't tell you because I knew you'd act like this."

Mac rubbed her temples, "Like what?"

"Like what I did the worst thing I could do. Like doing something for you was the worst mistake I could ever make." Off her perplexed stare he continued, "Don't act so surprised. It's not like you've been happy to see me since I found you."

His tone took a bitter turn, "But I suppose that's just par for the course."

Mac, who had been staring at the tabletop, looked up in shock. "Just what does that mean?"

Harm gave a dismissive snort as if he had become resigned to some horrible truth.

"It's simple. I rescue you, Webb gets the 'thank you' kiss and I get the insults."

Mac couldn't believe what she was hearing. "That's what's been bothering you? I kissed Webb, that's what bothering you?"

"No," Harm exclaimed, "That's not what's been bothering me."

"You wouldn't have said it otherwise." Mac pointed out.

"All right, so it bothered me. So what?"

"Well it explains a lot." Mac's voice developed an edge, "The insults, the innuendoes and finally that little comment of 'you can have him'. Even after I said that there was nothing going on."

"What do you expect me believe? I'm a lawyer and a pilot. I make judgments based on what I see."

"You see, how can we have a relationship if you won't believe me?"

At that moment Harm had his epiphany.

'I can't believe it. Can all of this be because I jumped to conclusions…again! I'm such an idiot!'

In an instant all of his anger disappeared. He slouched back in his chair, with a look of utter defeat on his face. He had no answer. She was right. They couldn't work, not like this.

Mac saw all of this and her heart broke. Friend or foe, she hated to see him in this kind of pain. Her expression softened. "What do you see now?" She asked. Unsure of what he might say.

"I…" Harm looked as though his world had ended, "I see that I was wrong."

He sat up and gave Mac a sorrowful look that tore at her. "And I see myself having just lost the best thing…the best friend I ever had."

'No!' Mac's mind screamed. This wasn't what she had wanted at all. She had realized that they couldn't be lovers, but she didn't want to lose him as a friend.

'Well what did you expect?' A nasty voice in her head whispered, 'Did you really think that he would just take that kind of rejection as a polite brush-off?'

To be honest Mac wasn't sure what she had thought. She was angry at the time, too angry to think straight.

"You haven't…" She began.

"You were right Mac." Harm hadn't heard her. He got up from the table. "Goodbye." He stated finally as if she were dead. Stiffly he turned and headed for the exit.

Mac sat speechless.


	3. Saving Grace

Finally she managed to shake herself out of her trance and ran after him.

He was a few feet from the main door when she reached the lobby.

"You haven't lost me." She shouted.

He turned. His shoulders were still slumped and he was still hunched over with the same defeated look on his face. He said nothing.

Mac approached him. "You wanted to talk. Let's talk."

"Why?" He asked.

"We need to settle this." She insisted.

Harm laughed a bitter laugh, "I didn't see us making much headway back there, did you?"

Mac stopped and stared for a moment. In a few short minutes he had changed. That was not the cocky self-assured aviator turned lawyer who had been her partner, her friend and fantasy for so many years. Instead there stood a broken man, who had seen all that he cared about suddenly and viciously ripped away.

Was there nothing left of him? Nothing left of the man she knew, the man she loved.

'Love? Where did that come from?'

Then for the first time since this whole ordeal had started, Mac decided to be completely honest with herself. She still loved him.

Harm took her silence to be an admission. He shook his head. "You were right Sarah."

'Sarah.' Mac nearly fell over from shock when he used her real name.

"About what?" Her voice was hollow.

"About us. Things can't work between us. One of us does something, the other reacts, we fight or don't fight, but the result is the same regardless and we end up at the same point in our relationship."

Mac was stung. "So this is your solution?" Her voice began to rise. "Give up on our friendship. Give up on everything we've been through together?"

"Don't you see. I can't be friends with you."

"Why?" Mac demanded.

"Because I…" Harm paused. Could he tell her? Why not, what had he to lose?

"Because I love you Mac. I guess that's moot at this point, but I love you. I've tried to rationalize it. I've tried to fight it for the greater good, for the sake of our friendship, but I can't. I haven't been able to do it for years and I can't do it now. But I can't ask you to love me when you don't."

'Oh God', Mac thought, 'He can't honestly think that can he?'

'Well,' That nasty voice reminded her, 'You did kind of say 'not now or ever'. That doesn't sound like a declaration of love to me.'

Harm went on, "But even if you don't, I can't deny it anymore and I won't. So my only option left is to leave and let both of us get on with our lives."

With that he turned.

'I can't lose him.'

"You're wrong." She called.

Again Harm turned. "About what?"

'It's now or never.'

Mac looked Harm square in the eye. "I do love you." She told him, "And I was wrong too. We've been through every possible ordeal people can face, from trials at court to battles in war zones. We've been to the far reaches of the Earth together. I chased you to Russia and you chased me to the South Pacific. We've fended off the mafia, drug barons, ex government agents, spyhunters and terrorists. And after all that, if we think that we can't overcome each other's arrogance and assumptions, then the only logical conclusion is that we are completely crazy."

Harm stood still. Mac held her breath.

Finally Harm spoke, "Say it again." He said.

"Which part?" Mac asked hopefully.

"The first part."

"I love you."

For the second time, Harm changed right before her eyes. He stood up straight again and the spark returned to his eyes, as he grinned his trademark grin. In a few short strides he closed the distance between them. He stopped just short of their bodies touching. He lowered his head towards hers.

"Then what the hell are we arguing about?" He asked as he lowered his lips to hers.

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Fourth chapter coming soon.


	4. Sweet Success

Finally Harm spoke, "Say it again." He said.

"Which part?" Mac asked hopefully.

"The first part."

"I love you."

For the second time, Harm changed right before her eyes. He stood up straight again and the spark returned to his eyes, as he grinned his trademark grin. In a few short strides he closed the distance between them. He stopped just short of their bodies touching. He lowered his head towards hers.

"Then what the hell are we arguing about?" He asked as he lowered his lips to hers.

It was a powerful kiss. A kiss that conveyed all the pent-up passion of eight years with no release…until now. Harm pulled Mac close to him, holding her in a vice grip. Never wanting to let go. When the need for oxygen became too great to ignore, he released her. They stood still looking at each other with hungry eyes.

It was Harm who broke the spell by looking at his watch.

"We've missed our flight." He said.

Mac shrugged, a smile playing on her lips, "Tomorrow's another day."

Harm grinned, "Tomorrow's another day."

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The early morning sunlight shined the hotel window casting beams of light upon the happy couple lying in bed together. Harm ran his hand gently over the soft flesh of his sleeping lover. He slid his hand up her knee and her thigh up to her waist.

Mac stirred and rolled over to face him. She looked up at him with a sleepy smile.

"Hey."

Harm smiled, "Hey yourself. Sleep well?" He asked.

Mac sighed contentedly, "The better than I have in ages. You must have worn me out." She teased.

Harm shifted so his face was over top hers.

"Well, I look forward to wearing you out many, many times from this point forward." He said. Then he kissed her gently.

"You realize that there are things that we're going to have to work out?" She said seriously.

Harm sighed and sat up. "I know."

"There are things to consider back at JAG. The fraternization rules for one. How we're going to work together being another."

Harm grinned, "Well seeing as I resigned, the fraternization rules don't really apply."

"Yeah, but you still can come back."

"Well that's entirely up to the Admiral. Speaking of which, if he does take me back, we should tell him about this to see if he can work anything out."

"Well, it worked for Bud and Harriet didn't it."

Harm nodded, "Yeah, but Harriet and Bud don't have to go on investigations together or face-off in court."

"There is that." Mac considered.

"Yeah, if we end up on an investigation together, I'm going to have a hard time resisting the temptation to simply kiss the living daylights out of you whenever we're alone."

Mac sat up, "Oh, really?" She asked, raising her eyebrows.

"Or if we're in court, I might just to decide to counter your objection by bracing you against one of the tables in the courtroom and…well the rest writes itself really." Harm joked.

Mac laughed and smacked him playfully across the chest.

Harm looked at her seriously for a moment, "Look, whatever happens, we'll work it out," he took her hand in his and squeezed it gently, "together." He told her.

Mac smiled and nodded.

Harm released her hand, "Of course there is still the matter of getting out of the country. I guess we'll just have to try and catch another flight." He said with a shrug.

"Yeah, but we can leave that till later. I was never a big fan of early morning flights anyway. Besides I can think of a better way to spend out time."

Harm looked at her, in curiosity, "Oh, yeah? What did you have in mind?"

Mac gave him a wicked smile and slid back underneath the sheets. "Well like you said, it's legal for us to do this now."

Harm chuckled and shifted over top of her. "Right, so I can do this." He kissed. "And this." He moved his lips to her jawline. "And this." He began kissing her neck.

Mac moaned her approval, Harm smiled and then there was no more talking.

The End.


End file.
